A few choice blooms today. The Navona lily is particularly lovely in part shade.
Cool link of the day about black plants. Add ornamental black cotton to my plants wishlist.
Late May seed sowing
Timing may be late since we are on the cusp of summer, but the ground is wet enough for seed sowing. I dumped all the alyssum packets in the shade bed (Wonderland White) and on the bald patches of ground surrounding the fence door (Deep Purple and Mulberry Mix). I’m not holding my breath that the seeds will take, but it would make me happy to see the empty areas disappear under some kind of color.
I put all of the cosmos seeds in, after scraping the tree ring soil into a trough. My honey finished the sowing mission by dumping the rest of the Durango marigolds and Lady in Red salvias also in the same ring. No point in hanging onto them; most seeds have a shelf life.
As a side mission, I also planted out 6 columbine seedlings that have long sat under the grow lights. They appeared to be browning–from age, I hope–so I went ahead and potted them up, put them out in the lily bed.
While I was inspecting the cutting planter boxes, I was pleased to discover that one of the Tricolor sages has a healthy root system breaking out of the jiffy pot (should be about 4 weeks old now). All of the sage and basil cuttings appear to be putting on new foliage–a great sign! The Thai basil seedlings in the same planter box are taking off, growing several branches and heavy foliage. I think with all the warm weather the rest of the week, I will bring out the basil and salvia seedlings from the bathroom greenhouse. Heck, I might just bring them all out.
Testing 2 new WP plugins and pondering the mobile web
After a shocking discovery that my site’s feed was still live, I resolved to put an end to it by installing the “Disabler“. I decided to go with a plugin because I experienced some difficulty modifying the Atahualpa’s functions.php file. I hope Restricted Site Access will consider putting in an option for restricting access, if not, disabling feeds, since I think it would be an appropriate function.
I also implemented Print Friendly and PDF, to make it easier to print out posts and pages. It’s quite handy when I want to print out a wishlist or recipe, and I’ve been looking for an easy way to add a print button to my WordPress sites.
There is a growing number of hits on the sites that I manage by mobile handsets. I am considering “mobile-izing” my sites to become more accessible to the huge market of smartphone users. I have two options to modify existing WordPress sites: via theme and via plugin. Of course, creating a mobile theme for each site will be time-consuming, while using a plugin means certain restrictions on format and creativity. I plan on researching this more, but for now, I need to experience the various browser-agents on the 3 hottest smartphone platforms: Blackberry, iPhone and Android.
Storm tossed Tuesdays
Still more rain today. Still no A/C today. Email from the landlord says unit has shipped, waiting on installer. I can’t blame the installer; who’d want to work in the rain?
So no new pictures today. Observations aplenty however. Like, how there are no Asiatic lilies blooming right now, just waiting on the Navonas to bust out. Along with the Navonas, all our Dallas Stars have buds on them, and still more buds to come. Can’t wait to see them in bloom. I think I spotted a couple of buds on our new Stellas; but the other one doesn’t seem to be cooperating. Their leaves have turned yellow quite a bit, so I imagine they are acclimating to their new home. The only daylily without a single bud this year is–you guessed it–Hyperion. I asked the honey to cut back the Hot Lips which has again overgrown the lily bed. Perhaps the Hyperion will benefit from the shearing.
The replanted callas might be enjoying all this rainfall. Some of the Flame specimens I replanted along the salvia wall seem perky; the leaves appear lively and healthy-looking. I should think about rehoming some of the potted callas.
The dozens of coral salvia seedlings are assembling into a formidable army of growing plants. Some of the transplants are militantly swelling in size and girth–crazy! I hope the Ladies in Red are similarly vigorous. I’d hate to see them overrun by the corals…I was counting on a brilliant red display in the front yard. In addition, I hope to finally get the cosmos seeds sowed into the tree ring. along with more marigolds; and alyssum in the bare patches near the front yard fence line. I figure I might as well sow them somewhere and hope they don’t mind the short growing season.
Egads, temps are looking to be around the 90s the rest of this week, with the wet weather behind us. I expect humidity and a lot of lying about the house…until the A/C is fixed. I’m hoping we don’t go cooler-less this weekend…I want to get some work done in the garden before summer hits. Those two bags of Spider lily bulbs won’t plant themselves!!!
On my garden wishlist today: variegated Snow Fairy caryopteris and variegated lacecap hydrangeas.
Rain, humidity and marigolds
We’ve been experiencing fierce spring storms in Texas, with storm cells affecting most of the south and midwest US. When it’s not raining, it’s terribly humid, which of course feeds more storms. Unfortunately, having no a/c is miserable especially with the heat and humidity. Therefore, I haven’t spent much time out in the yard to putter around. What efforts I made in protecting the hostas, for instance, has been washed away. (Not to mention, all the grass seed we sowed last week.) So I’m relegated to sitting back and watching things grow.
My first Durango marigold bloom of the year happened on Sunday (or maybe Saturday)–a nice golden yellow bloom. Another Droid2 image capture, so image is not the best.